Roland Boer sets the scene for a series of articles on the complex and contradictory relations between Marxism and religion, with an introduction to some of the issues. An embedded poem by Patrick Lodge is mutually illustrative. Two preliminary topics are important for any effort to reconsider the difficult relations…

Ben Stevenson outlines Christopher Caudwell's historical materialist analysis of religion. Poet, activist and theoretician Christopher Caudwell wrote extensively on issues of philosophy and idealism in culture and science. His contribution to a Marxist understanding of the way in which religions - in particular the early philosphy of Christianity - has…